How Do I start Playing Piano Again after a Break
The piano from Shakespeare and Co in Paris, France as featured in Vanity Fair
Ready to start playing piano again?
First of all, remember that life happens.
NO ONE expects you to play piano every day for the rest of your life. Or every week. Or every month! I know this might sound radical or surprising from a piano teacher, but I have taken long breaks from playing piano. Sometimes we need to take breaks from playing piano, and then figure out how to start playing piano again after a break.
One of my friends and mentors went to one of the top conservatories but dropped out because the experience was so disappointing- and they quit their instrument for years. Only to later have a career of playing for major celebrities and a prolific career.
In fact, I’m going to say something that might make you bristle: sometimes you need a break from piano in order to get better.
I know that I did.
Another image of the piano at the bookstore “Shakespeare and Co” in Paris.
Real talk
I don’t have regular access to an instrument when I travel. Most people who play piano don’t!
When I was in college, I spent a few months away from the piano right before the semester of my piano proficiency requirements, called a jury or a standing. While I was traveling, the only time I touched a piano was when I visited the Shakespeare Company in Paris, a kind of bohemian bookstore for expats and English speaking visitors, and it had a community piano. I played something I had memorized for my French friend, because she knew that I played. That out of tune song was the only time that I played in months. I remember feeling self conscious heading to my summer lesson, but also feeling relaxed about sight-reading new repertoire for my professor that day.
After I played, my professor said, “Being away from the piano was good for you. I’ve never heard you play like this.”
In hindsight, I came to that teacher after a series of negative experiences that had thrown a bit of a wrench into my playing. The words and ideas from these other teachers made me question my own playing, and I didn’t trust myself. I spent a semester getting comfortable playing for this new teacher, and absorbing all of the new strategies for playing piano.
And then I didn’t touch the piano for 2+ months.
And then I came back to my current teacher, who I knew I could trust, who I had learned so much from in the months prior, and...
I just played.
The piano from Shakespeare and Co in Paris, with signs reading “Please do not play the piano after 8 pm… Merci de ne pas jouer da piano apres 20hr,” and “Please Do Play Our Piano BUT - be gentle/ She’s had a hard time of it recently…”
It’s okay to take time away from the piano! If it happened, you probably needed it. Give yourself grace. Forgive yourself. In fact: you should thank yourself for resting when you needed it.
Once you’ve given your inner self a little hug, and you start to crave playing piano again, or at least feel a little nudge back to music, here are some ways to get yourself back on track to playing piano again after taking a break.
Hot Tip:
If you are traveling and looking for a piano to play, look for a public piano. These street pianos are all over the world! You may have even seen some in your city. This website helps locate public pianos all over the world.
If you’re staying at a hotel with a conference center, you can often ask to practice on the ballroom piano that they have for weddings and parties. It will probably be in the corner of an empty room and a little out of tune, but most places I’ve stayed have let me practice there.
Imagine if your traveling piano practice was done like this !
To Get Back to Playing Piano Again, Hit Shuffle
If you are returning to piano after a break, it’s fine to come back to the projects that you know and love and have been working on forever. But if you’re trying the same songs on piano and it’s just not sticking... I think you need something new.
Why did you end up taking a break from the piano? Maybe you were just traveling, or swamped with work or a new job. But also, maybe something changed in your life. Especially after major changes in our life, it’s important to adapt to our own needs and find a new footing.
If your break was spurred by a life change, take a moment to pause and reflect on what you really need. Maybe you are in a period of transition, and upbeat flashy music feels like your way to dive into expression and acceptance. Maybe you took on a caretaker role and need to recharge emotionally, so instead of your favorite songs you normally play, you need a genre totally new to you. Maybe classical music or jazz standards feels like a reset right now.
When you are choosing new music, you are choosing something that you can learn from. There are lessons of skill and technique, but also lessons from life saved in these pieces by the composers. The music you choose should be what you need right now. Do you need a distraction, or do you need healing? Are you looking for inspiration, or information? Your journey back to piano may start with listening. Find something new, or find an artist you admire, and let the algorithmic rabbit hole lead you to something new.
Even if your break was just a run of the mill practice rut, it can be helpful to completely shake things up. Why? If it’s new, it’s different. It’s curious, engaging, exciting. And what’s the point of learning piano if you’re not excited about it?? This is your chance to learn something new and to love doing it.
How do I get back to the piano now?
Okay, picture this: you know you need to build your endurance for that dream hiking trip this summer. Every day you tell yourself to train, but you’ve put it off for so long that you feel like you need to go hard right now.... but then another day goes by, and oops- you didn’t go outside.
Which are you more likely to do tomorrow? Take a meandering walk while catching up on your backlog of podcasts, or run for as many miles as you can stand under the guise of building your cardio endurance?
Okay, next question. If you run hard today, will you do it again tomorrow? Will you do it again later this week? Or next?
When we feel guilty about falling behind in our goals, we tend to try to punish ourselves with more intense or painful work, or overload ourselves trying to make up for lost time.
This will only lead to one of two things: avoidance, or burnout.
Trust me. I’ve tried both!
So how do I get back to the piano now?
Give yourself an easy yes.
If you want to build a routine that gets you back to the piano over and over again, you need to pick something that’s fun and something that’s easy.
Playing piano can feel easy if you set yourself up for success.
I remember an elementary teacher or school librarian telling me that if there were 5+ words on the first page of the book that I didn’t know, then I should probably pick an easier book.
We’re all different, and maybe you know that your sight reading is not an indicator of your ability, so customize this for you as you need to, but you can approach choosing new music this way.
Pick a piece of music that you’re interested in, and read through 8 bars, one hand at a time. Does it feel okay? Is there some flow, or do you have an idea of where the music is going? Try it hands together. How did it feel?
When you’re trying to get back into playing piano, don’t pick music that makes you feel frustrated, annoyed, or disappointed. Choose music that makes you feel accomplished and delighted, that is fun to play and just the right dose of challenging. Pick something that you think you can learn in less than a month. If you give yourself a simple enough challenge, then you can find something more stimulating after that month- but you need these next few weeks as a grace period to enjoy being back at the piano.
Take it one step further: make the music really yours. Go through and annotate the music at will. Forgot the notes during your time off? Write them in! Can’t make sense of which hand is which? Grab some colored pencils and color code it! None of the fingerings are working? Write in your own! Every tool that you give yourself to simplify the process of learning the music will catalyze your return to the piano and expedite the feeling of accomplishment and growth.
Use all of the usual tricks to bring yourself back to the piano. Create a ritual around playing, habit stack to help carve out a new routine, and reward yourself with fun music and things that make you smile.
How hard is it to relearn the piano? It’s harder if you try to learn piano alone.
I get it: it’s hard to try to learn piano, and even harder to admit that you can’t do it alone. That’s not even true: you can learn piano again, and relearn piano without a teacher! But the trick to having a lifelong practice of playing piano and making music is building a system of joy and personal accountability, and the truth is that it’s a lot easier to do that when you’re not doing it alone.
Don’t be intimidated by classes or worried about showing up to a lesson because you feel unprepared. Oftentimes, we need another perspective to get us out of this rut. Shake things up and learn a new perspective by taking a self-guided or group piano class for adults, or by taking online piano lessons for adults. These are great ways to start playing piano again after taking along break.
So, how do I start playing piano again?
Start with something fresh, new, and exciting to you.
Make sure it feels easy and accessible for where you are at in the beginning.
Don’t do it alone! Find a group class or a piano teacher to help jumpstart your process and help you reframe your perspective.
Are you ready to start playing piano again?
Ease yourself back in with the self-study course Play Piano Anywhere, and learn 10+ songs that you actually recognize to shake things up and refresh your piano skills.
Answers to your questions about getting back into piano after a long absence:
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It’s never too late. Piano is something you can learn for the first time at any age, and I really mean any age! Getting back into playing piano is the same way. You can never be late to learning music. Waiting until you feel inspired and refreshed with a new passion for learning is an advantage for you, use it!
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Everyone is different. For me, playing again after a long break was the best I had ever played. Taking space for yourself is encouraged in order for you to find joy in learning. All learning should be joyful and if you feel ready to return, that’s amazing. How long it takes or how easy it is all depends on your teacher and your practicing habits.
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You can truly do anything on your own. the internet is a never ending source of information. Do I recommend that everyone learns from Youtube? No. Can it be learned that way? Sure! If you’re interested in finding a teacher to learn from, make sure they match your passion, excitement, and joy for learning. Your teacher can make all the difference; it sure has for me.
